


Fever

by h3ad_and_h3art



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin Angst, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin Fluff, Bellarke, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Hurt Bellamy, Hurt Clarke, I still don't know how to tag fics, Sharing a Bed, Sick Bellamy, Sick Clarke, and i suck at titles oops, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h3ad_and_h3art/pseuds/h3ad_and_h3art
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bellamy gets sick with a mysterious illness, Clarke refuses to leave his side as she tends to his fever. However, she might just end up getting more than she bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fever: Part One

**Author's Note:**

> I was intending to write something a bit lighter than my last fic but this ended up being angstier than I originally intended. . . . *sigh* Such is life. And, yes, I’m still a hoe for the sharing-a-bed trope, why you ask? ;) Enjoy!

Bellamy knew that something wasn’t right when he missed his shot in target practise.

Even though he was aiming for the wooden post, his bullet only skimmed it, ripping up the side of the post and ricocheting off of the metal gate behind it. For a dazed, confused moment, he wasn’t quite sure what happened. Bellamy _never_ missed – it was a fact he prided himself on, one of the reasons he had been granted such an esteemed position on the Guard in the first place. But, now that he thought of it, his arms felt weak, and he just could not maintain a steady grip on the gun.

Yep, something was seriously wrong.

“Still a lousy shot, I see,” Raven quipped, sitting on one of Arkadia’s benches nearby.

Her left leg was still perfectly useless, but she seemed to enjoy making a point of following him around, just to make cheeky remarks any time he messed up. The girl seemed convinced that she was a God, especially since ALIE gifted her with her “super brain”. If Bellamy were a bigger person, he might have even thrown a compliment her way every now and then, but – how he saw it – her ego was already overfed.

Generally speaking, Bellamy would have fired back a sarcastic retort to level the playing field, but he just couldn’t dig up the energy to fight back this time. His legs felt like they were going to collapse at any moment and his vision started to blur at the edges so that all he could see of Raven was a distorted image in his periphery.

“What, you’re not even going to deny it?” Raven. Her voice was growing fainter, just a dim annoyance at the back of his mind now. “Bellamy?” she asked again. Bellamy thought that there might even be a tinge of concern laced in her voice, but it was hard to tell when his ears didn’t seem to be functioning properly.

The different shades of green from the trees blended with the grey hues of the asphalt below his feet as Bellamy’s vision blurred even more intensely. His stomach dropped with a lurch and a wave of nausea washed over him as the world tilted around him. Vaguely, he thought he heard voices and someone, probably Raven, saying his name. A shiver rushed through him, chilling his bones to his core, and he let out a shaky breath. He didn’t know how much longer he would be able to stay on two feet. The Earth below him was moving. It rippled across his vision like waves, an ocean of grass and asphalt – soon it would consume him.

A hand closed around his bicep and the world stilled. His skin tingled where he was being touched and Bellamy slowly turned his head to see who it was. At first all he saw was a hazy silhouette, but his sight started to clear, revealing blonde hair and blue eyes, features that continued to sharpen as his senses returned slowly to him.

Clarke. It had to be.

“Bellamy?” she asked, her voice echoing slightly. Bellamy was pretty sure her voice wasn’t supposed to echo. “Bellamy, can you hear me?”

He tried to nod, but the movement just made him even dizzier. The effort to show her he understood made him even more imbalanced and he tipped forward, his stomach lurching as the ground rose up to meet him. Clarke’s hands stopped him before he fell, steadying him. Once he was relatively stabilised, she reached up to place the back of her hand on his forehead. Her touch was warm and mildly comforting, but Bellamy still felt like he might fold in on himself at any given moment.

Clarke’s eyebrows furrowed slightly and she pursed her lips. “He has a fever.” She then placed her hands back on his shoulders and said gently, “You need to rest.” Turning towards someone he couldn’t see in his periphery, Clarke called out, “Miller! Get over here.”

Bellamy didn’t hear the footsteps, or whatever Clarke said next, but in a moment solid arms were wrapping around his shoulders, offering him support. The touch was less gentle than Clarke’s, impatiently dragging him forward towards what Bellamy assumed was the remnants of the Ark – of course, he couldn’t be sure that’s where he was heading when the world was tipped off of its axis and he felt like he was submerged underwater, his sight distorted almost beyond recognition.

Eventually, Bellamy felt his back hit mattress and he sagged into the soft material of his bed. Lying like this, in the cool air of his quarters, he started to feel slightly better. At least, his senses improved, but the nausea had not left and his heart still felt like it was encased in a block of ice. As his vision cleared to the extent that he could make out pixelated images, Bellamy saw who could only be Miller walking out the door. Clarke was facing towards Miller, standing at Bellamy’s bedside.

“Thank you, Miller,” she said.

At least Bellamy’s hearing was better. The revelation was a relief, but the clear fatigue in Clarke’s voice bothered him. She worked all day in the medical clinic, determined to improve her skills as a doctor – just like her mom. Clarke would never admit it, but Bellamy suspected it had more to do with ensuring she never lost anyone she loved again than taking up a respectable position. Clarke was like that. But she was also the kind of person who would exhaust herself to the point that she was basically a zombie before resting when she had not yet achieved her goal.

Maybe Bellamy would have expressed his thoughts on another occasion, but as it was he was just doing his best not to puke all over Clarke. If there was a way to make the already mildly embarrassing situation worse, that would be it.

Of course, Clarke didn’t seem to be aware of that simple fact. Instead, she pulled up a chair Bellamy had at his desk and sat at his bedside.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Now that you’re lying down, your sight and other senses should be returning to you.”

She was right. By now his hearing was back to normal and his sight was not far behind. He could see her almost as well as he would have been able to before he went to target practise that afternoon. It was a small relief

“It’s better,” he told her, but immediately convulsed with a rack of shudders. The chills had yet to leave him.

“You’re cold.” Clarke immediately gathered the sheets on his bed and pulled them up to his chin. The sheets he slept in were worn out and thin, like practically everything that came down with the Ark, and didn’t provide much warmth, but Bellamy appreciated the gesture, all the while hating the fact that he was being babied.

“That better?” Clarke asked, concern coating her voice. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth set tightly together.

Bellamy nodded slightly. “Thanks,” he said, “I’m going to be fine, Clarke. You should head back to your shift now – I don’t want you to get in trouble with your supervisor.”

“I’m a medical apprentice, Bellamy. This _is_ my job. Frankly, I think Jackson would be more pissed off if I let my patient die from some unknown illness so that I wouldn’t miss out on sterilizing needles and scalpels in the med bay.”

“You’re not my doctor, Clarke,” Bellamy croaked, “and I’m not going to die if you leave me here.”

Clarke frowned. “Why are you arguing with me about this, Bellamy?”

He didn’t know.

Maybe it was some stupid bout of narcissism, not wanting to be seen in this way – inferior and weak. Maybe he was uncomfortable resting with other people in the room. But maybe it was just that having Clarke show any sign of affection towards him made him want to run far away, and that was one thing he couldn’t do.

Bellamy swallowed, his throat dry, and didn’t say anything.

Clarke sighed, and reached out her hand to check his temperature again. “You’re burning up. When did you start feeling this way?”

Bellamy shifted, finally accepting that Clarke wasn’t going to leave. “When I missed the target with my gun.”

It was faint but Bellamy noticed the sides of Clarke’s mouth turn up in a grin. “Because there _must_ be something wrong with you for that to happen. You know, I heard there’s a woman who came from the Ark that deals with arrogance. You might consider checking that out.”

Bellamy stared daggers into her eyes, even though they both knew he wasn’t really angry. “You sound like Raven. I thought you were a doctor, not a critic.”

“No, you’re right. I’ll stop.” But she was still smiling.

The sight caused a strange feeling in his chest. Bellamy didn’t remember the last time he had seen Clarke really smile. She looked so at ease and . . . happy. The thought that happiness might actually have found them amazed him. But it amazed him even more that he was the one who was responsible for putting that smile on her face.

Or maybe Clarke was just really twisted, and found the thought of Bellamy sick in bed truly amusing.

He chose to go with the first prospect.

It wasn’t until Clarke cleared her throat abruptly and jerked her head to the side that Bellamy realised they had held eye-contact for far too long. Far too long, for people who were just supposed to be friends – long enough for Bellamy to ponder over why it never felt like “friends” seemed to describe what he and Clarke had.

Clarke had, apparently, moved on to more serious matters. “Anyway,” she spoke rapidly, “you started feeling off when you were in target practise. Okay. What did you eat today?”

“Clarke, you sat across from me at breakfast. We ate the same thing.”

Clarke blinked rapidly and shook her head slightly, looking disoriented. “Oh. Yeah. Um . . . right. Next question, I guess.”

“Clarke.”

“What?” she sounded more confused than annoyed, her eyes wide and staring straight ahead in a blank way. Bellamy wondered if she would even register his next words.

“You okay?”

Clarke was silent for a moment, and Bellamy began to wonder if she might give in for once and admit that she was working herself practically to death. But then she let out a short, unconvincing laugh. “Asks the guy who practically fainted in my arms.”

He didn’t joke along with her. “I’m being serious. Have you gotten _any_ sleep since Polis?”

“Sure.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows at her and she started worrying at a hangnail on her hand. Bellamy reached out and gently stopped her movements, holding her hands in his. Clarke was forced to meet his eyes and eventually sighed. “My hours in the medbay go late. My patients aren’t just going to slow down and wait for me if I’m too tired to help them. I need to be prepared to act even when I’m at my worst.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t suppose you feel like telling me _more_ bullshit.”

Clarke glared down at him. Good to know that she wasn’t too tired to make it clear that she found Bellamy insufferable. “It’s the truth.”

“Working from six am to three in the morning aren’t normal assigned hours, Clarke. I’m not stupid.”

Bellamy watched as she sucked in her breath. She looked lost, like she wasn’t quite sure how to answer him. But then she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “How would you even know those are my hours?”

“Night shifts,” he responded. “The lights in the medbay are always turned on. Which is interesting, considering the only person who is ever in there past eight is you.”

Clarke crossed her arms, defeated. She had that look in her eye, the one she always had when she was deep in thought. Bellamy waited intently for her answer, but did not get to hear it when another wave of light-headedness washed over him. He felt himself sinking into the mattress, lighter than air, as his vision grew spotted. His sickness trailed its icy fingers all up his legs, his arms, and his torso, locking him in an encasement of ice. Bellamy shuddered and groaned, rolling onto his side. It took all of his willpower not to hurl.

Warm hands rubbed circles over Bellamy’s back, soothing. Nimble fingers brushed his hair away from his forehead. The back of one hand brushed lightly over one of his cheeks, fainter than a butterfly kiss. Bellamy closed his eyes, letting his heartbeat slow down. The touches reminded Bellamy of when he was little and he would get sick on the Ark. His mother used to whisper stories to him – Greek myths. She must have thought that he was either asleep or too delirious to listen to them because she always told the dark stories, sad stories, the kinds of stories that she would never breathe aloud to Bellamy and Octavia before bed on a normal night. But Bellamy listened. He remembered them all. Even to this day, he could recite each and every one word for word. The darkness fascinated Bellamy, while he would never admit it, and that fascination was enough to distract him from whatever illness he had.

But Bellamy wasn’t a kid anymore, the Ark was gone, and so was his mother – forever lost to the vacuum of space. All that was left was here and now, with Clarke at his side trying to comfort him. Bellamy wondered, after everything he had done, how he managed to deserve even that.

“Hang in there, Bellamy,” Clarke murmured softly, continuing to rub his back tenderly, but her words were strained with concern. Bellamy understood. They didn’t know what had made him feverish, if it was something that the rest of the camp might come down with, what the later symptoms might be, or even if it was contagious. For all they knew, Clarke might be sick in bed the next day, too. Before the Arkadians even knew what hit them, there could be an epidemic on their hands.

“You just need to rest,” Clarke told him, her voice faintly heard through the haze of his delirium.

Bellamy wanted to roll around, look into Clarke’s purple-rimmed eyes, and tell her she shouldn’t be here with him. If an epidemic was what they had, the Ark wouldn’t have the supplies to control it. Clarke being with him at all when he was down with something neither of them knew anything about was, in itself, a giant risk. And, as it was, Bellamy knew that Clarke was exhausted to the point that she could barely function properly. Without any real medication, her presence was entirely unnecessary – she would be much more productive to use this time to sleep. But the feel of her hands on his back was more soothing than Bellamy was willing to admit, the feeling of being cared for foreign enough to make him crave it in a way he didn’t know he could. It almost felt like if he closed his eyes, he might cease to exist, swallowed up by the temptress of sleep.

Before Clarke’s touch slowly lulled him to sleep, all Bellamy managed to get out was, “So do you.”

 

When Bellamy awakened, the room was cloaked in darkness. Sunlight no longer streamed in through his window and the muffled stirrings of Arkadia life outside his quarters had slowed to a stop, replaced instead by an eery silence. Bellamy wasn’t used to quiet, not anymore. There was always something – gunshots in the shooting range, the sound of loud chatter in the cafeteria, heated debates taking place in Council meetings or, after the Arkadia citizens retired to their quarters, the whistling of the breeze in the trees, wild animals creeping in the bracken, and the whispered mutterings of the guards working night shifts. It wasn’t often that Bellamy found himself a moment of quiet; the utter stillness was almost unnerving.

It took Bellamy a few moments to realize that there was, in fact, a sound after all. A soft intake of breath and the exhale that followed. Breathing. When he first awoke, it was easy to mistaken the breathes for his own, but now that Bellamy listened more carefully that was clearly not the case.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Bellamy weakly pushed himself up onto his elbows and allowed his sight to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, as his vision returned to him, Bellamy could make out a silhouette on the edge of his bed. He recognized the shape of a head and a hunched back, bent in an awkward enough position that whoever it belonged to must not have fallen asleep intentionally. In a few moments, he could see well enough to recognize the unmistakable wavy tresses that were sprawled and tangled on his shabby Ark-issued duvet.

Bellamy gulped, but he didn’t dare move or make a sound. He hadn’t expected Clarke to remain in his room as he slept – surely she would have grown tired of watching him and eventually returned to her shift in the medbay or, better yet, finally decided that it was due time to take a well-earned nap of her own. But this was Clarke, and Bellamy knew that she gave her full attention to her patients – as much as he hated to refer to himself in that term – and it would be a perfectly _, irritatingly_ , Clarke thing to do to stick around just to ensure he didn’t start coughing up blood in his sleep or, on the off chance, magically evaporate into a cloud of smoke that would then waft around the Ark halls, infecting everyone in sight.

Bellamy sighed. The fact that Clarke took extra care of her patients didn’t much help the inevitable bout of embarrassment that came with the realization that Clarke had been sitting at his bedside for potentially hours doing nothing other than watching over him like the grim reaper. Perhaps he was vain, but Bellamy had never felt quite secure sleeping with others watching – not that it happened very often. He despised the idea of being off-guard in front of anyone else, vulnerable to their scrutiny and judgement. When he was asleep, Bellamy handed away his control.

Still, he was glad to see her finally resting. The insomnia finally had to be too much for even Clarke - which was saying a lot, since he’d seen her stay awake for nights on end back at the dropship whenever someone came down with the flu or rushed in sporting an open fracture or a head gash that required eight stitches from some stupid trick one of the other kids had pulled. Bellamy didn’t remember the last time he’d seen her sleep so peacefully. Nowadays, it seemed like she was always awake, rushing around in medbay or plotting strategies in Council meetings. Bellamy guessed she probably didn’t get much sleep in those three months she spent away from him and her friends, either.

She needed this . . . which is probably why it didn’t last.

Clarke began shifting where she lay, making small murmurings to herself – too faint for him to make out. She was waking up. Bellamy watched as she began to push herself up from the mattress, rubbing her eyes, and blinking at her surroundings. With a small groan, she reached her arm back to rub at her neck. It occurred to Bellamy that it must be sore. Sleeping how she had couldn’t possibly be comfortable. The thought sent an involuntary flash of guilt through him. The only reason she was even there was for him.

“Have you been sitting there all night?” Bellamy asked softly, creating a fissure in the silence. Clarke looked momentarily startled as her neck snapped over to look at him, but he couldn’t decide whether she hadn’t noticed that he was awake, or if she had forgotten she was with him at all.

“I – I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She scrambled, looking for her watch – a new one. As far as Bellamy knew, the whereabouts of her father’s watch were a mystery. “Three o’clock,” Clarke read, her brows furrowed. “No . . . that can’t be right. Last I checked it was midnight. I didn’t fall asleep for three hours.” She ran a worried hand through her hair. “Dammit. This never happens. This _can’t_ happen. I was supposed to stay awake. I was supposed to-”

“ _Clarke_.” Her anxiousness was alarming. Bellamy hadn’t realized the extent of Clarke’s stress. By now her lip was trembling and her eyes were tearing up – just because she’d accidentally fallen asleep. Bellamy reached forward to grab her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Clarke, listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if you keep doing this you’re going to drive yourself insane. Or make yourself sick. You can’t keep working yourself like this. Like it or not, you need sleep too.”

“But I have to-”

“No,” Bellamy cut her off. “You don’t have to do anything. The world isn’t going to fall apart if you catch a few hours of sleep here and there, Clarke. So why don’t you tell me the real problem?”

For a moment she fell very silent, and Bellamy waited for her answer. Clarke bit her lip and looked away. He gave her a moment to tear her gaze away from the wall to meet his own. “I feel like I have to be doing something. I _have_ to be helping people, keeping busy. Otherwise . . . the memories get in the way and I just _know_ I’m letting people down, as always. I was gone for three months, Bellamy. I’ve done horrible things. I’m starting to think I’ll never make up for them.”

A tear rolling down her cheek, Clarke turned her head and pulled her shoulders out of Bellamy’s grasp. She crossed her arms and hunched in on herself. Like this, in the dark, Clarke turned to glass. Bellamy saw right through her calm and collected façade, the act that insisted she was fine. She looked alone, lost, like she was struggling with one hundred different things at once. It was an act Bellamy was familiar with, himself, he acutely understood exactly how she felt.

“You need to stop beating yourself up over that, Clarke,” Bellamy told her softly after a moment of silence.

Clarke turned towards him slowly, almost in a stupor. It took Bellamy a moment to realize that she looked surprised. “I thought you would be the last person to tell me that,” she choked out.

Bellamy tried not to be hurt by her words, but he felt like he’d just taken a sharp blow to the gut. “Why would you think that?”

“What you said – when I visited you in Octavia’s quarters. I spent so long thinking that you hated me after that.”

“I didn’t,” Bellamy interjected, more sharply than he intended. He took a breath. “I could never hate you, Clarke. That’s the thing. I don’t think there’s a single thing you could do that would make me. You could string me up in a tree and I’d still forgive you; you could rip my heart out with your bare hands and crush it, and I would follow you to the ends of the Earth.”

In other circumstances, Bellay might have been embarrassed by his candor, but in this moment - as he stared into Clarke’s tearful eyes and at her just slightly parted lips - all he could think was how very true it was.

But then the water suspended in Clarke’s eyes became a slow-trickling stream and she let out a small whimpering sound that made Bellamy wonder if he shouldn’t have said anything at all. He reached out to caress her cheek with the back of his hand, brushing away one of her tears. “Hey, no need for that. I didn’t mean to-”

“Bellamy.” Clarke placed her own hand over the one he held to her cheek, pulling it gently away so that their fingers were entwined together on his bed. She closed her eyes, letting one more tear fall. “It’s okay.”

And then, Clarke smiled.

It was meager, yes, the corners of her mouth barely turned up. Her cheeks were even still wet from crying. The bags under her eyes prominent, her hair a rumpled mess, and Bellamy couldn’t help but think that Clarke looked like absolute hell. But when she smiled, he could barely notice the rest, because this tiny gesture of happiness was genuine, and it was real, and that was enough.

“You don’t need to live in the past forever, Clarke. You’re here now – the rest doesn’t matter.”

Clarke stared at him, her eyes wide open and her gaze intense. It was difficult to decipher what she was thinking – but then, it always was with Clarke. There was no telling how long they had managed to stay that way - just looking at each other, understanding each other’s unspoken thoughts – when Clarke’s eyelids began to droop. It dawned on Bellamy that their conversation, however brief, was keeping Clarke awake.

“You’re exhausted,” he said softly. “You should sleep. I’ll be okay.”

Clarke shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. “No, it’s fine. I’m not tired.”

Bellamy half-laughed. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her eyelids were half-shut, fluttering slightly as if she was struggling just to keep them open. Even her speech wasn’t quite right – she spoke in that slurred way that people often did when they were tired, like she was fighting against a yawn every time she opened her mouth. Bellamy observed that she had even missed a button on the blouse she had put on that morning.

“You could have at least tried to make up a convincing lie, Clarke. You look like shit.”

She glared at him. “Thanks. Your gratitude is overwhelming.”

Bellamy sighed. “You know what I meant. You look like you’re about to pass-out. I thought we just talked about this.”

“We did.” She didn’t elaborate but, judging on the stubborn set of her jaw, she didn’t need to. It was obvious that Bellamy might as well have been speaking to a brick wall over the past hour.

“For god’s sake – just go to bed, Clarke. You don’t have to spend all of your time with every person that comes down with a fever. You can leave me alone. I’ll be fine.”

Bellamy wasn’t just saying that for Clarke’s benefit, he really did think he’d be okay. He already felt a million times better. His nausea had almost completely subsided, leaving behind only a slight dizziness in it’s wake, and all of his senses had long since returned to normal. The fever still made him feel like his bones were encased in a freezer, but it was nothing a couple of warm blankets wouldn’t solve. Clarke sticking around all night to look after him was entirely unnecessary and, if he were honest, kind of freaked him out.

“You don’t get it,” Clarke said, her voice taking on an almost pleading tone. “It’s not that I can’t leave my patients alone, Bellamy. I can’t leave _you_.” For a moment, Clarke almost looked sheepish, but then she recovered by saying, “So just shut up already, okay?”

The weight of her admission landed heavily. Even if Clarke hadn’t told him to shut up, Bellamy had no idea what he would have said in response to that. He still couldn’t quite believe that anyone would go out of their way just to ensure that he was all right. Ever since Bellamy was a child, no one had ever put him first. His mother was always busy working or stressing about ways to keep Octavia safe – sometimes he wondered if she wished that Bellamy didn’t exist at all. Then, at least, Octavia wouldn’t have been a problem, she could have pursued the life she always wanted. A lot of things would be easier if Bellamy wasn’t around. The dead would be less numerous, the grieving less mournful. All he caused was pain.

But then there was Clarke.

Clarke, the girl who managed to look past the monster that he recognized to be himself. The first person to tell him she needed him. Clarke, the girl who trusted him and believed in him when he couldn’t trust nor believe in himself. Clarke, the girl who told him that she couldn’t lose him.

But also, the girl who broke his heart. The girl who, for so long after she left him, he believed didn’t really care about him after all. Here she was, making him believe that it might not be true, that it actually mattered to her whether he lived to see the morning or not. The air had been stolen from his lungs, and Clarke had no idea what her words had done.

He didn’t have long to dwell on it, however, when Clarke suddenly jumped off her stool and started kicking off her boots. Bellamy raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. That is, until she started unbuttoning her shirt.

“What are you doing?” he asked, hoping that his rising panic was masked in his voice. He had no idea what the hell was going on. It was crazy how quickly the situation had escalated out of his control. First, Clarke told him something that left him speechless, and now she was stripping down in front of him?

“Getting ready for bed,” she replied. Cool and nonchalant.

After she’d finished unbuttoning her blouse, she threw it carelessly on top of her boots on the floor so she was left wearing her leggings and a thin tank top that revealed a little bit more than what Clarke generally showed in public. Bellamy felt his face heat up and was silently grateful that the darkness of the room would hide the inevitable blush he felt creeping into his cheeks. 

Clarke walked up to the side of the bed and said, “Scooch over.”

Bellamy blinked up at her, disbelieving. “What?”

“You’re the one who keeps insisting that I get some sleep,” she pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “This way, I don’t have to leave you and you can always just wake me up if something’s wrong.” Then, when he didn’t move, she sighed and pulled back the covers anyway.

Bellamy flinched at the sudden lack of warmth, and felt the hairs on his arms rise. Luckily, the cold didn’t last for long because suddenly Clarke was pressed against his side, the covers returned to their normal place. His bed was by no means made for two, so Clarke was inevitably squished up against him – this didn’t seem to bother her, though.

Bellamy snapped out of his momentary second of shock and struggled to try and move away from her. “Clarke, you shouldn’t be this close to me. You could get sick, or catch a fever or-”

Clarke laughed and moved closer to him. “The sickness is muddling your brain. You can’t ‘catch a fever’ and if I was going to get sick, it’s already too late. I’ve been near you for hours. Besides,” she shrugged, “body heat will help break the fever anyway. It’s a basic medical treatment.”

 _Basic medical treatment_. Bellamy almost snorted. “You do this for your other patients, too, then? You better not tell anyone else that, or they might just try to feign getting sick in exchange for some quality time with you. I’m sure there are plenty of lonely bastards who would just _love_ to-”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

“Since when did I start taking orders from you?”

He was teasing her and, evidently, Clarke could tell, because she just ignored his antics and snuggled up closer to him, burying her head into his shoulder and placing an arm over his chest. Her nose pressed into the arc of his neck and her hair tickled his skin, but he didn’t mind. Giving in, he reached an arm around her torso and pulled her closer.

When Bellamy looked down at her, Clarke’s eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted. It was obvious that she was on the brink of falling asleep. Bellamy smiled softly, but didn’t say anything. He wondered whether he was supposed to feel weird about this, sharing a bed with Clarke, but it didn’t feel weird – even though they’d never done it before. It felt natural. It felt _right_. And Bellamy didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about that either. The lack of labels on what he and Clarke shared was never-endingly confusing. “Friends” seemed too simple a word to describe their relationship, but they certainly couldn’t be said to be more. At least, Bellamy didn’t think so.

He thought of what Clarke had said to him – _I can’t leave_ you – and the way she hadn’t hesitated to climb into bed with him, burrowing into his side as if it were the most normal, logical thing in the world. Perhaps what he and Clarke had would always be indescribable. Their bond was unparalleled, it could not be replicated, and Bellamy thought that maybe he was okay with that.

On another occasion, maybe Bellamy would have said something to her, but he wasn’t about to disrupt the first amount of rest Clarke had gotten in probably days so, for now, he was content in keeping his lips sealed.

All of these thoughts running through his mind, Bellamy bent his head slightly to plant a kiss on Clarke’s forehead. He wondered, vaguely, how Clarke would have responded to that – what she would have said. Or done. But it didn’t matter, anyway. She was already fast asleep.

 

 

The next time Bellamy awakened, sunlight was breaking through his window, erasing the remnants of the night. Faintly, he could hear the chirping of birds singing their morning tune, there one moment and carried away by the wind the next. It must have been very early, as the morning bustle from the Arkers at work had not yet begun. For now, all was peaceful.

After a moment, Bellamy realized that the constant cold that kept him company all night had finally departed, instead leaving him feeling significantly better, but decidedly sweatier. Grimacing, Bellamy tried to pull away from Clarke – suddenly self-conscious – but she hadn’t exactly given him much leeway, sprawled all across his bed, her head still nestled on his shoulder. Apparently, his rustling hadn’t been as inconspicuous as he intended, because Clarke started to stir until she was perched up on her elbows and blinking up at him with sleepy eyes. Bellamy was glad to see that she looked at least somewhat rejuvenated. Some colour had returned to her cheeks and the circles around her eyes were less noticeable.

After studying him for a short moment, a small smile turned up the corners of Clarke’s mouth. She brushed a strand of his hair away from his eyes and placed the back of her hand on his forehead. “Your fever broke.” Her smile grew bigger. “Good.”

As she went to rest her head on his shoulder again, he stopped her. “Uh, Clarke? You probably don’t want to . . . sleep so close to me now.”

Clarke glanced up at him, genuine confusion coating her tongue as she asked, “Why?”

“I’m all . . .” Bellamy didn’t finish the sentence. This entire situation was getting gruesomely uncomfortable the longer the conversation continued.

Clarke frowned at him for a moment before realization dawned in her expression. Shaking her head slightly and smiling fondly, she bent her head upwards to kiss him lightly on the cheek. Bellamy wasn’t sure if he was imagining the way her lips seemed to linger on his skin. “I don’t care,” she murmured quietly in his ear; and, as if to prove her point, wrapped her arms tightly around his torso and snuggled up even closer to him than she had before, her head resting under his chin now.

It only took one short moment of hesitation for Bellamy to melt. Relaxing into her embrace, he let his head fall against hers and wrapped his arms around her. In another situation, with another person, the extra warmth that came from holding Clarke like this might have even been uncomfortable, but Bellamy didn’t care. Whatever they had – whatever _this_ was – was still so difficult to define. But it was enough for Bellamy.

Just knowing that someone actually cared about him was enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Fever: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Bellamy gets sick with a mysterious illness, Clarke refuses to leave his side as she tends to his fever. However, she might just end up getting more than she bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I finally got it up... This chapter ended up being a lot longer than I was expecting. As in, 3k words longer. Buuuuuutt I am feeling a lot more confident about it than the last one so I hope you like it! 
> 
> You guys, I really really tried with the fluff this time. And I actually feel confident in saying that it's probably at least 60% fluff, so there: I AM GETTING THERE, ALL RIGHT??? My poor, angsty heart is just too strong

It was two days later when Clarke collapsed in the middle of the Ark cafeteria. 

Bellamy’s first indication that something was wrong was when Clarke abruptly froze in the middle of her sentence about starting water rationing – something he knew she took very seriously, especially since what ALIE had told her back in the City of Light about the water becoming undrinkable in just a few short months. She halted in her steps, her brow deeply furrowed and her eyes staring into space – almost like she had gone blind and couldn’t see anything at all.

When Bellamy noticed she had fallen behind he frowned and looked over his shoulder. “Clarke?” he asked, uncertain.

Her lips parted, as if she was struggling to say something, but couldn’t. The metal fork on her food tray rattled against the flat surface. It almost seemed like an earthquake was passing through, except it wasn’t affecting anyone but Clarke. Her hands were trembling; the tray looked like it would collapse at any moment. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Bellamy knew exactly what was happening.

Rushing forward, Bellamy just managed to reach his hands out and catch Clarke as her legs gave out, knees crumpling like paper. The tray clattered to the ground, creating a loud bang that echoed like a gunshot and resulted in many gasps and curious glances in their direction. With one arm holding her up by resting under her back and the other reaching across her body to hold onto her waist, Bellamy just managed to keep Clarke’s head from hitting the ground. Her feet were limp against the floor, as though they were locked in paralysis, but Clarke reached her hands up to his neck, trying to hoist herself up.

“Clarke, it’s okay,” he whispered, ignoring the burning eyes of everyone in the room. “I’ve got you.”

She looked confused for a moment and didn’t look straight at Bellamy, as though she didn’t even know he was there. He remembered these symptoms – it had felt like the ground beneath his feet was rising, and he was sinking in the opposite direction, helpless, the air being stripped from his lungs. Clarke was probably feeling nauseous and Bellamy wished there was something he could do to help her, but the most he could do was be there to reassure her – the only medicine that had worked for him when he fell sick was time and rest.

“Bellamy?” she breathed.

Her face was as white as a ghost, all of the blood leeched from her skin. Bellamy thought she looked pale earlier, but had brushed it off at the time, writing it down as a result of the constant pressure they were all feeling. Bellamy cursed himself silently – he should have been on the lookout for things like this ever since he’d gotten sick.

He didn’t voice any of this. Instead, he just told her, “I’m right here, Clarke.”

“I’m probably … contagious,” she forced out, weak puffs in-between breaths.

Bellamy understood what she was asking without her needing to say anything more. He saved her the effort of elaborating by nodding his head, although whether she could even see the movement was questionable. “I’ll take you to your room.”

Clarke let her eyelids fall shut and bobbed her head slightly - almost not at all. “Thank …” she took a breath, “you.”

Bellamy could feel prying eyes drilling holes into his back as he rearranged his grip on Clarke so he could pick her up, one arm under her legs now with the first remaining on her back. He tried not to turn back to look at all of the Arkadian’s watching them leave the cafeteria, but it felt like a magnet was pulling him; rumours had been circulating ever since Clarke stayed the night in his room. Bellamy knew what some people were saying – _wondering_ \- but there was no way anyone would understand if he tried to explain what was really going on.

He could just see it playing out: “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. She was just sleeping in my bed for _body heat_. To break the _fever_. Nothing more than simple medical procedure.”

There was no good way to explain it. And Bellamy wondered what Abby would think if he started spreading the news that jumping into bed with sick men was Clarke’s new method of treating a fever. It was better to just let the rumours run their course. Miller would tire of questioning him about it eventually.…

He hoped.

Bellamy shook his head and banished the thoughts from his mind as he entered the hallway, blessedly empty. There were more important matters at hand, such as the way he could feel Clarke burning up underneath her shirt, and how he may have accidentally unleashed an epidemic. Or the way Clarke’s hands were still wrapped around his neck, and she had her head buried into his shoulder, her lips resting on the strip of skin that wasn’t covered by his t-shirt….

Dammit.

“Bellamy?”

Bellamy broke away from his thoughts to look down at Clarke, her face now turned up to look at him, her eyelids slightly shielding her eyes. He was guiltily grateful that her sight wasn’t working properly so she couldn’t read what had just been on his mind – Bellamy had never been good at hiding what he was thinking, not in front of her.

“Yeah?”

“Is this what drowning feels like?”

Bellamy couldn’t stop the grin that broke out on his face. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, it feels like shit.”

“Sounds about right.”

Clarke turned her head and muttered something into his shoulder that he couldn’t make out properly.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I said,” she mumbled, “that this is all your fault.”

Bellamy scoffed. “Yeah? And how’s that?”

“You passed this on to me,” she said, very matter of fact. How comforting to see that the sickness hadn’t stolen her snark.

“I thought you told me that fevers aren’t contagious, doc.” Bellamy rounded a corner, readjusting his hold on Clarke. It wouldn’t be much longer now – her room was along this corridor.

“They _aren’t_ ,” she insisted, gaining some fervor back into her voice. “But whatever you were sick with _was_ , you idiot.”

Bellamy smiled despite her insult. “Careful. We’re almost at your door. It would be a shame for me to drop you now.”

Clarke grumbled something into his shirt that sounded a lot like “jackass”, but she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck anyway, sending a spark through his body. He chose to take it as a term of endearment.

The walk was silent the rest of the way, until he reached her door. It was only then that he realized he didn’t have a way of actually getting in.

“Do you have a key?” he asked.

He felt Clarke’s head bob against his shoulder and watched as she fumbled blindly in her jacket pocket. Eventually, she pulled out a neat little silver key and dangled it slightly for Bellamy to take it out of her hand. Bellamy tried to ignore the tingle that went through him as their fingers touched. He seriously had to get a grip on himself.

“Uh, okay,” he said. “Just hold on for a sec.”

Clarke tightened her arms around his neck as he loosened one arm to put the key in the lock. It proved to be an incredibly difficult task, as he was forced to try and balance Clarke with just one arm, but eventually he figured it out. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

Bellamy didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he walked in Clarke’s room. It was basically empty: no notes, no clutter, no nothing. Her bed looked like it had never been slept in; in fact, the entire room looked like it had just been gathering dust for the past few months. It seemed as if Clarke hadn’t spent any time in it at all and it occurred to him, suddenly, that maybe she hadn’t.

Adjusting to the surroundings, Bellamy crossed the room to lay Clarke on her bed, pulling back the neatly folded sheets to wrap around her. Clarke’s eyes were closed like shutters, her eyelashes fanning her cheeks, and her lips were slightly parted. Tenderly, he reached for the covers and drew them up to her chin. She was as white as a sheet – Bellamy knew Clarke had been joking before, but he also knew she’d been right when she told him this was his fault.

Swallowing, he brushed a hand and turned towards the door. “I’m going to go get your mom, so she can come check on-”

“ _No_.” Clarke’s voice was loud, demanding. Her eyes were wide open now, and she was sitting up in the bed.

Bellamy blinked at her, surprised, and Clarke leaned back, gathering herself, as if the outburst had shocked even her. “Stay,” she said more softly; then, after a moment of consideration, “Please.”

Clarke refused to break eye contact with him, shivering slightly. The look in her eyes made him want to melt. She looked so vulnerable and … something else. She looked _afraid_. Like the thought of him leaving scared her to death, and she would rather stumble through the halls, weak and nauseous, then let him leave her in that bed alone.

And, if he were to be completely honest, _that_ scared _him_.

He didn’t tell Clarke any of that, of course. Instead he attempted to push the growing panic to the back of his mind and nodded before heading towards her bedside, pulling up a chair. Clarke closed her eyes again, letting out a breath, and laid flat against the bed again.

“Thank you,” she breathed, so faint he almost didn’t hear it.

Bellamy nodded, dumbly, before realizing that her eyes were shut and she wouldn’t even see him do it. Shaking his head, he went to turn out the lamp at her bedside. The blinds were drawn, but light still spilled through the cracks, so he could still see clearly. When he looked back down at Clarke, her eyes were open again, and she was staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“Do you want the light on?” Bellamy asked, uneasy under her gaze.

She shook her head in response and continued to stare at him. Bellamy looked down at his hands laying in his lap. The fact that Clarke was still staring at him didn’t make him feel any more comfortable. It seemed like everything between them confused him lately. He didn’t know how to act, what to say – or do – whenever she did anything out of the ordinary. The air was electrified between them; he felt it, she must feel it, too. Something changed that night he’d gotten sick, but he couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t want to mess with it either.

It was the moment before a race started. The anticipation before the whistle that signalled the beginning of the event. Only Bellamy didn’t know what they were racing towards, or how long it would take to get there. They were at a standstill, deliberately ignoring everything as it unfolded in front of their eyes.  This strange sheer wall between them felt fragile, and Bellamy was afraid that - if touched - it would shatter, and then everything between them would be forever altered.

As if she knew the very thing to destroy him, Clarke reached out a hand and clutched onto one of his own. The same volts of electricity he felt in the air shot through his fingertips and his lips parted as she intertwined her fingers with his, firmly fitting her hand into his grasp. It took only a few seconds for Bellamy to shake himself out of his momentary awe so he could adjust his grip and hold her palm tightly in return. Her hands seemed so tiny when he held them in his own, but somehow managed to fit perfectly. Like she was a second part of him, the other side of a coin or, he thought ruefully, the _better_ half of him.

“Bellamy,” she exhaled quietly.

“Clarke.”

“Why are you still here?”

Bellamy blinked at her. “I thought you wanted me to stay.”

“ _Of course_ I do,” she quickly explained. “That’s not what I meant. I mean … why have you stuck by my side all this time? Even after I left you, even after Polis, you just … You’re always there when I need you, even when I wasn’t there for you.” She sighed. “I guess I just don’t know what I did to deserve it.”

Bellamy could hardly believe what she was saying. After everything, after all that he had done, and she was questioning whether _she_ deserved _him_. If anything, it had to be the other way around. All his life, Bellamy had been making mistakes, doing stupid shit, making more mistakes … He was a mess. A disappointment. People probably thought his birth was a tragedy.

Except for Clarke.

She was everything to him. The idea that she believed that all she was to him was a nuisance made him feel sick to his stomach.

“Clarke, it’s not about what you _deserve_ ,” he started, but stopped when he saw her face fall – that was when he realized his mistake. “Dammit. Clarke. That’s not how I wanted it to come out.”

His apology felt flat even to him, but Clarke didn’t move away, waiting for him to continue. Bellamy internally cringed. Apparently he was good at talking in every situation _except_ when he was speaking to Clarke about … _feelings_. His brain might as well have been mush.

“So how _did_ you want it to come out?” she prodded.

“I…” he began, but realized he didn’t even know where he had been going with his thoughts in the first place. “I- I don’t know. I guess I just feel like I … I _need_ to.”

 _Idiot_.

Clarke’s expression immediately looked like all the light had been sucked out of it. Her hand fell limp in his and she started to pull it away, rolling onto her side to face away from him. The look in her eyes tore a hole in his chest. He hadn’t meant for his idiocy to do this.

“Clarke …” he started, searching for a way to make it right.

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” she responded, ice dripping off her tongue. “Forget I ever said anything. I get that you feel some sort of _obligation_ to be here, but it’s unnecessary. You don’t have to stay.”

Bellamy didn’t just feel sick anymore; he wanted to punch himself in the eye. Hard.

Repeatedly.

He just didn’t know how to explain to Clarke the real reason he always wanted to be there for her, how much she really meant to him – how she was his oxygen and, without her, it was impossible to breathe. It always felt like the walls were closing in around him when she wasn’t around, and he didn’t know how to move forward. His own self-hatred consumed him and it made the prospect of death seem like the most appealing, the most logical option for him. No one would really miss him if he was gone.

But then there was Clarke. She was his constant reminder that he had to keep fighting. He didn’t know how to explain to her that, if she weren’t breathing, neither would he. She was his sole purpose. With Octavia hating his guts, Clarke was his last incentive to keep living. If not for himself, he would at least do it for her. But there wasn’t a way to tell Clarke that without giving away too much. The last thing Clarke needed was this extra burden of holding his life in the palm of her hand – there was no way he could put that on her.

But there was also no way he would let her go on thinking that his only reason for sticking by her side was some stupid sense of _obligation_.

Impulsively, Bellamy reached out his hands to encase Clarke’s in his own before she could completely turn away from him. Her head snapped over to him, her mouth forming a soft “o”. For a moment, her hurt had forgotten to settle in her features, instead replaced with something akin to surprise. It occurred to Bellamy, painfully, that she had expected for him to leave.

“It’s because I…” _Because I love you_. “It’s because I care about you.”

Bellamy let out a breath. Maybe one day he would tell her the full truth about how he felt, but not today. Not when he had no reason to believe she felt the same.

For a long moment – too long – Clarke just stared at him. Her features revealed nothing, her expression a blank slate. Bellamy worried that she hadn’t heard or, worse, that she had and didn’t believe him. Didn’t care.

But suddenly her face softened and she squeezed back his hand weakly. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she said, “Why didn’t you just tell me the first time?”

Bellamy shifted in his seat, hesitated … shifted again. “I guess I just didn’t know how. I’m not good at discussing…” he paused, considering, “ _this_ ,” he eventually decided, nodding his head slightly towards their joined hands.

“This?” Clarke asked. “What do you mean by … “ _this_ ”? Clarke raised herself slightly off the bed to lean forward into him, her neck bent slightly so that she was staring up at him. Bellamy could feel her breath on his lips, her eyelashes almost brushed his cheeks when she blinked. Her lips were barely a few centimetres away from touching his.

She was trying to kill him. Confirmed.

Bellamy attempted to take control over his expression, molding his features so they looked serious and unaffected, even though his heart was practically jumping out of his chest. Her eyes fluttered slightly and Bellamy thought he would lose control right then and there, but somehow managed to keep it together.

“Didn’t I just tell you I was bad at discussing it?”

Clarke stared at him for a moment before her lips turned up slightly in a crooked grin. Collapsing onto her back again, she let out a rapturous laugh. Bellamy managed to let out a breath, now that she wasn’t so close to him.

She’d been teasing him – it was the only explanation. It didn’t mean anything, just that she was trying to make him uncomfortable … because that was funny to her, apparently.

Damn. It would be nice if she took his health into account.

Blowing air out of his mouth, Bellamy leaned back in his chair, still holding onto Clarke’s hand. She squeezed his hand once and closed her eyes. A faint smile still painted on her lips, Bellamy watched as Clarke’s grip on his hand loosened and her breaths became even. Before long, she was fast asleep.

Bellamy thought of her joyful laugh just minutes before and pondered, grimly, over how it could be that someone could be so lively one moment, and gone the next.

 

Clarke had exactly one book in her room, and it was one that Bellamy shared a familiarity with that he lacked in most of his human relationships. Maybe that was a sad fact, but ultimately true. As a kid, books had been his refuge. He didn’t get the opportunity to make many friends – what with the additional stress of keeping Octavia a secret – and, as a result, he spent many hours locked in the Ark library pouring over the pages of hundreds of different legends and stories. The graphic novels were action-packed, and what most boys in his age bracket opted for, but Bellamy always had a certain fondness for the Greek myths.

So when Bellamy saw “The Odyssey” laying forlorn and forgotten in the corner of one of Clarke’s shelves, there was no way he could resist reaching for it.

A childish excitement that Bellamy usually did a good job at masking overtook him as he cracked open the spine. The book fell open easily, the corners of the cover worn and many of the pages torn – evidence that the book had been well-loved by whoever used to own it. There was no way to figure out if the book had always been on the Ark, or if it’s previous owner had been killed in Mount Weather, but it was a morbid prospect that Bellamy was happy to ignore.

Bellamy glanced behind him back at Clarke’s bed. Clarke had been peacefully asleep for hours now and, while he had no intention of leaving her alone, he figured it would be acceptable for him to indulge a bit in a relic of his childhood.

Bellamy didn’t indulge himself often – he didn’t know what exactly had come over him; maybe he felt so drawn to the book in part because of all the times he had read it to Octavia. While he may never be able to make up with his sister again, this book held a connection to her that made his heart ache with nostalgia.

Staring down at the random page he had opened to, he looked to the first place his eyes landed on and began to read: “ _Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other._ ”

“What are you looking at?”

Bellamy jumped and snapped the book shut, turning around to see Clarke sitting up in bed, propped up on one hand. Her eyes gleamed like lanterns in the dim lighting and her expression was owlish - wide-eyed and alert, not sharing the groggy demeanor of someone who had only just wiped the sleep from their eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologised. “I wasn’t trying to startle you.”

“I thought you were sleeping,” Bellamy tried to explain, and then questioned why he felt the need to explain himself at all.

“I was,” she stated simply, and then nodded at the book – now closed in his haste – in Bellamy’s hand. “You read that before?”

“Only about a million times.” Clarke raised an eyebrow at him and he added, “Slight exaggeration.”

“Slight,” she parroted.

“Yes.”

Clarke tilted her head a bit, looking at him with interest and mild amusement. “I didn’t know you liked to read.”

Bellamy looked down at the book, contemplating his response. “I used to read all the time on the Ark.” He edged closer to the bed, returning to his seat on the stool. “With Octavia I, uh, didn’t get to have many friends.”

Bellamy felt awkward admitting this fact; it had often been a sore spot for him when growing up – as much as he loved her, Bellamy had always been acutely aware that Octavia isolated him from the other kids, and he would never be able to lead anything close to a regular childhood. Which, subsequently, meant no friends.

Clarke’s face fell and her next words she spoke quietly. “That must have been hard for you.”

Bellamy smiled half-heartedly. “Didn’t know what I was missing, anyway.”

“Still,” she insisted, and then her expression changed. She seemed distracted, shy even. “Although, it does make me wonder. You seemed so … _confident_ when we first got here.”

“I do attract a lot of friends,” Bellamy said sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood. Clarke didn’t seem to notice.

“No … I mean,” she hesitated and, while it was difficult to tell in the darkness, Bellamy thought he saw Clarke blushing, “with _girls_ ,” she finished finally.

Oh.

Bellamy shifted awkwardly. “Well … there were _some_ kinds of relationships that didn’t involve anyone getting close to Octavia that I could have on the Ark.”

He couldn’t believe that he was having this conversation with Clarke, but she hadn’t left him much choice except to be honest. It’s not as though he’d kept his flings when he got to the ground lock and key, anyway. In fact, he was pretty sure everyone in the original hundred that was still alive knew about them, which included Clarke. The truth was, on the Ark, the only form of intimacy outside of his family that he could ever hope to receive was through one-night stands with random girls whose names he never even learned. That way, he never had to risk any of them getting close enough to him to learn about the secret he was hiding. In the end, it turned out that his caution didn’t matter anyway, but that was hardly the point. Bellamy didn’t bother to elaborate – in fact, he really wished that Clarke would change the subject so he could stop thinking about it entirely.

“Oh,” Clarke said, and it was obvious that she understood everything he left unsaid. Her voice sounded meek, and Bellamy hated that he had managed to make her feel uncomfortable.

“Things are different now,” he quickly added, not really sure why. “I don’t need that … _connection_ anymore.” And things _were_ different; everything had changed since those early days on the ground. In ways, he felt more alone than ever. But in moments like these, talking with Clarke, he was reminded that wasn’t really true. “I have people now.”

Clarke looked up at him, her lips parted slightly, and Bellamy wished that he could understand the gears turning in her mind in that moment. She stared at him, unblinking, with a new expression he couldn’t place. As the seconds ticked by and she didn’t look away, Bellamy began to wonder if she would ever break her gaze. It occurred to him, abruptly, that he would be content to stay in this moment – with Clarke – forever. But, eventually, Clarke broke the silence and it was disrupted; where the world had once been frozen in time, the clocks began to tick again, and the moment ended.

“Can you read to me?” she asked softly.

Bellamy was taken aback. “You _want_ me to?” he asked.

Clarke nodded, and Bellamy blinked at her, still not over his initial surprise. Shaking his head minutely, he nodded slightly and said, “Okay.”

Clarke exhaled and laid back down against her bed, settling into her pillow and turning onto her side so she could look at Bellamy as he read. Swallowing, Bellamy popped open the book again, flipping back to the start. Just enough light streamed in through the cracks in the shutters for him to see the words on the page. As Bellamy’s eyes settled on the first words of the book, he began to read aloud.

As the story unfolded, Bellamy was transported years back in time, the world around him morphing into another place entirely. In this moment, he was back on the Ark – young and innocent, still reading aloud, but not to Clarke. Instead, he read to a girl with wild, impossible dreams in her mind, and large curious eyes. Bellamy was taken back to a time when things were simple and they didn’t know true pain – he and the imaginative girl had no idea what was to come, all they had were moments like this: moments where they could lose themselves in a story and forget the reality neither of them had ever wanted.

 

Clarke wasn’t really listening to the story – she just liked watching Bellamy read. He became a different person, his entire demeanour changed. It was like he was five years younger, immune to the horrors the Earth brought with it. All of the muscles in his face relaxed and his features softened, his eyes holding the kind of wonder Clarke didn’t know was still possible. The shadows that constantly masked his face seemed to lighten, so much until they almost dissipated entirely, and Clarke caught a glimpse of the boy he used to be. But even that boy was not unburdened – Clarke knew that – and even in a simple moment like this, Clarke could see the weight that pinned him down continually.

The way Bellamy’s mouth shaped the words, annunciated every syllable – it was like a perfected art, almost as if he rehearsed it. It was apparent that he’d read this book aloud before. And then it dawned on Clarke; _of course_. She wondered how many times he’d read this book to Octavia. Thinking about this now, Clarke could just detect the hints of sadness in Bellamy’s voice, the slight longing and the nostalgia. Clarke was well aware that the Blake’s relationship was still shattered in ruins – she wondered, could Bellamy feel the shards now?

Clarke decided to brush the thought aside. Despite the inevitable pain she was sure would always be associated with Octavia, this last tie to his sister only seemed to bring him peace. That thought made her suddenly glad that she had asked him to read to her. It wasn’t often that the two of them had a chance to sit back and reflect without having to worry about the sorrows the following morning would bring. In this isolated moment in time, it was easy to forget about the rest – the bad stuff – and just try to remember what they had to live for.

Bellamy halted in his reading, and lifted his eyes off of the page to scrutinize Clarke. Pulled out of his reverie, he looked suddenly skeptical. “Have you even been listening?” he asked.

Clarke feigned ignorance. “What? Of course – it was just getting good.”

Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “Really? Then what just happened?”

Dammit. Clarke sighed and tried for a half-smile. “What gave me away?”

“You were smiling throughout a very lengthy and gratuitously detailed section dedicated to misery and pain. It was sort of unsettling.” Bellamy eyed her curiously. “Why did you want me to read anyway if you weren’t going to listen?”

Clarke pushed herself up so that she was eye-level with him and considered his question. There was no easy way to lie about asking him to read to her, so she just tried for the truth. Besides, she figured she owed him, after his earlier confessions. Clarke grew flustered just thinking about it. “I like watching you read.”

Bellamy’s lips parted slightly and he seemed momentarily speechless. His eyes fluttered slightly, a physical habit Clarke had come to associate with Bellamy whenever she did something to surprise him. He seemed to contemplate her words for a moment, but obviously reached no conclusion as to what she meant, as evidenced by the pure bafflement in his voice when he asked, “ _Why_?”

She smiled. “Because it makes you seem like a child again.”

Bellamy blinked at her. “Wow, thanks, Clarke.”

Clarke shook her head, cringing at her word choice. “No, I mean you seem younger; less burdened. Innocent. You look like you’re at peace.” She frowned. “You seem … happy.” She hesitated. “I just don’t remember the last time I saw you happy. I wish it happened more often.”

Bellamy’s eyes flitted away when she looked at him, seeming suddenly shy. As she waited for his response, if it were to come, Clarke twiddled nervously with her thumbs. Recently, silence had come to make Clarke anxious; it made her feel abandoned and alone. When all was quiet, Clarke grew acutely aware of all the voices of people she would never hear again. It was in the silence where the dead announced their presence, reaching out their hands to suffocate her, whispering indiscernible mutterings in her ear– as if to remind her that, while they would never breathe again, the weight of their passing would lie on her shoulders until the end of her days. Shivering at the thought, Clarke decided she couldn’t take it any longer and threw her hand over top of Bellamy’s again, the contact providing her the reassurance of _you are not alone, you are not alone, you are not alone_.

At the end of it all, at least she still had Bellamy. She still had him.

Clarke stared down at their intertwined hands, feeling tears – of relief, love, pain; it was impossible to tell – burn in the back of her eyes. She didn’t realize how close Bellamy’s face was to hers until she felt the faint tickle of his breath on her cheek. Her breath caught as he moved his lips so that they almost brushed her ear, and whispered, “I’m happier with you.” Turning her head to look at him, their faces so close together their noses nearly touched, Clarke searched his eyes. She expected him to move away, like he always did whenever Clarke showed him any sign of affection, but he remained rooted. “You … _you_ make it better. Worth it.”

“Worth it to what?” Clarke breathed, annoyed by the meekness she heard in her own voice. It wasn’t _her_ fault that he made her feel this way. “ _Live_?”

Bellamy nodded almost imperceptibly, and closed his eyes. Clarke leaned her head forward an inch so that their foreheads touched. She felt a jolt of electricity where their skin was connected, and felt her heartbeat quicken – bouncing erratically out of her chest. Her pulse thrummed through her veins like a drumbeat. She nudged Bellamy’s nose slightly with her own. “Shouldn’t life be about more than just surviving?” The phrase sent a sharp memory through her brain, but – for once – it wasn’t painful. Instead, it reminded her of what she now knew: a life without love isn’t a life at all.

Bellamy might have replied, but she didn’t give him a chance. She didn’t have to move much to close the space between them, pressing her lips softly to his own. The feeling of their lips pressed together sent a thousand lightning bolts between her, sparks flying in the air and energy sizzling in her veins. At first, Bellamy turned into an ice statue, his entire body seizing up and his breath stopping, but he quickly started to thaw and moved his lips against hers.

Clarke reacted immediately. It was like all of the emotions inside of her – the love, the longing – emerged all at once; she didn’t want to wait anymore. She threw her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his curls, and pulled herself closer so that she was pressed against his chest. Bellamy responded by wrapping his arms around her waist. Their lips started moving quicker now, moving urgently against each other. Clarke was drowning, and Bellamy was her oxygen – and she couldn’t get enough. She kissed him like the world was ending tomorrow, like the sun was just moments away from combusting and the Earth would soon enough erupt into a fireball of broiling flames and catastrophe. Clarke kissed him like this was the last chance she would ever get to feel in love, and there was no way she was going to waste it.

As for Bellamy – he clung to her like she was his lifeline. And, in a way, Clarke knew that she was. After everything, she had failed to prove to him his own self-worth; he had basically admitted she was all he had to live for anymore. The thought tightened around Clarke’s heart like a fist and she pressed herself even closer against him, kissing him even harder - burning with determination to prove to him just how much she truly cared. If she were to die tomorrow, knowing that Bellamy realized he was loved, then it would all be worth it. Bellamy responded almost desperately, his arms tightening around her. Clarke struggled against her bedsheets, shoving them aside so she could get closer to him. There was no way to be close enough.

Clarke forced herself to tear her lips away, but only temporarily. She moved to focus them elsewhere, peppering kisses on his cheekbones, in the dip underneath, along his jaw and down his neck. She heard Bellamy’s sharp intake of breath when she reached the hollow of his throat, but felt suddenly dizzy. Blood rushed to her head and she lost feeling in her hands. Her sight became fuzzy and distorted, so she could no longer see Bellamy anymore. Clarke experienced the vague sensation of falling before reassuring arms caught her.

When Clarke’s senses returned to her, she was half situated in Bellamy’s lap – half on the bed – and her forehead was pressed into his shoulder. She felt faintly nauseous and was immediately grateful that she had somehow managed not to throw up. Her head pounded and she groaned, the sound muffled by Bellamy’s t-shirt. Her fever had chosen a bloody ideal time to announce itself again.

“You’re still sick, Clarke. We’ll continue this another time,” Bellamy promised, his voice deep and throaty in a way that made her heart do a little dance in her chest.

With that, he assisted in situating her so she was laying down on her bed again, covers pulled up to her shoulders. As Bellamy started to turn back to sit on the chair he had pulled up to her bed, Clarke’s arms shot out like two firecrackers to latch onto his t-shirt, yanking him down towards her. Bellamy, thrown off-guard, almost fell on top of her, if not for the two arms he propped on either side of her torso at the last moment. His face hovered just a centimetre over her own, and Clarke smirked.

“If you’re going to force me to wait until I’m better to kiss you again,” she said, “then I really hope you weren’t planning on spending all night in that chair.”

Bellamy returned her grin and popped a kiss on her nose before rolling over to the side so he was laying on the bed beside her. Clarke smiled with satisfaction just as Bellamy said, “You know, Clarke, you are _very_ lucky that I already caught this sickness and am now immune – otherwise, I’d be booking my ass as far away from you as I could possibly be.”

Clarke snorted. “You are so full of shit.” And then she nuzzled her head into his chest, exceedingly happy to be back in this position again. Bellamy wrapped his arms around her in turn, cradling her against him.

Maybe being sick wasn’t so bad, Clarke thought, if this was what she had to look forward to.

 

Bellamy woke up to the sound of knocking on Clarke’s door. He glanced over at Clarke, happy to see that she was still asleep, a light sheen of sweat on her brow. Reluctantly, he forced himself out of the bed to answer the door. Before opening it up, he hesitated briefly, reminded again of the rumours circulating about him and Clarke. It was easy to deny them before, but now that they were actually true …

Bellamy pushed it out of his head and turned the knob. On the other side of the entrance was Kane, raising an eyebrow when he saw him but not looking even mildly surprised.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Kane said, and Bellamy bit his tongue; he hadn’t realized his and Clarke’s relationship was so obvious that even Kane would know about it. “You’re on watch in half an hour.” He fixed him with an intense stare; it was infuriatingly difficult to read. “I haven’t seen you lately and wanted to ensure that you hadn’t forgotten your duties.”

Bellamy _had_ forgotten, but he wasn’t about to tell Kane that. “Okay, I’ll be ready soon.” Then, when Kane didn’t leave immediately, he added defensively, “Clarke got sick and didn’t want to be alone.”

Bellamy didn’t realize how that sounded until it was already out of his mouth. Dammit.

Kane just shook his head. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Bellamy.” He morphed his expression into a more serious look. “Half an hour. Don’t forget.” Then he turned on his heel and marched down the hall; Kane never had fully shed his councilman demeanour.

Bellamy blew out a breath, annoyed at himself – he really couldn’t have made it any more obvious that there was something going on between he and Clarke. Even _he_ didn’t really know what was going on between them. Now that it was a few hours since they’d kissed, Bellamy didn’t know how Clarke would feel about it. Or if she’d regret it. Bellamy’s chest tightened at the thought and he turned to look at Clarke sprawled across the bed, peacefully asleep.

Bellamy didn’t want to leave her there to wake up alone and thinking he’d run away, but he wasn’t about to disrupt her either. Figuring that he didn’t really have a choice, he rummaged through her drawers for a pen and a scrap of paper and scrawled a quick note on it. Leaving the note on her bedside table, Bellamy spared himself one last look at her before leaving the room to get ready.

Little did he know he wouldn’t talk to her again for the next three days.

 

His absence was the first thing Clarke noticed when she woke up. The bed was cold where Bellamy used to be, his arm no longer around her and the sheets kicked up where he slept. Clarke’s immediate instinct was to panic. It wasn’t like Bellamy to just disappear, and she didn’t want to believe that he would leave her behind. Not after what had happened …

Oh.

Clarke’s stomach dropped as she remembered the kiss and glanced over at Bellamy’s empty spot on the bed. Was it possible that he had woken up and regretted it all? Did he look at her and realize that he’d made a mistake, or simply just changed his mind about her? The thought made Clarke want to dissolve into tears, but she locked her emotions away, trying to keep her eyes from burning.

Clarke blinked and turned to hop out of bed, wanting to change her clothes. They were all sweaty now, from when her fever must’ve broken sometime in the night. That was when she saw the note.

It was illuminated on her bedside table by the sunlight breaking through the cracks in her shutters. Gulping, Clarke snatched it off the table and unfolded it.

“Kane came by. Guard duty. Will try to see you later. – B”

His scrawl was surprisingly neat, the words lined up straight and the letters perfectly rounded. It was such a small observation, but it made Clarke smile. First books, now this – Bellamy must have gotten on well in English class. Clarke wondered what Bellamy had been like on the Ark – the more she got to know him, the less recognizable he was from the loud and obnoxious leader who insisted on chaos and disorder the first few days on the ground. Back then, she never would have guessed that there was another side to him - a soft, loving side. Clarke smiled fondly at the thought, touching her lips lightly.

She had been silly for thinking that Bellamy would just abandon her. _He had guard duty_ , she thought, unable to stop the feeling of relief that overcame her.

Of course he did.

 

The truth was, Bellamy didn’t _want_ to avoid Clarke. He was so deeply linked to her that even being apart for the past three days made his heart ache and long to be near her. He found himself worrying about how she was managing, hoping she was getting enough sleep, eating properly, that the stress wasn’t taking its toll on her …

Wondering if she hated him.

When Bellamy wrote to Clarke that he would try to see her again, he hadn’t been lying. But then the paranoia settled in and he found himself being tortured by the prospect that maybe she didn’t _want_ to see him. Clarke had a fever when she kissed him – she, herself, had said that the sickness made people delusional. When she woke up in the morning, and she realized what happened, had she been regretful? Embarrassed? _Revolted_? Bellamy didn’t want her to think that he had been taking advantage of her when she wasn’t in her right mind, forced her into something she never wanted. Bellamy hated himself just thinking about it.

He couldn’t blame her for regretting what happened. They were supposed to just be friends, but even that would be ruined now.

Bellamy bit his lip, and looked into the mirror of his bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. His shirt was folded on a stool for him to put on after his shower, and he reached over for it. Usually, at this time, he would be in the bar talking with Clarke, but he wanted to give her space. If she wanted to see him, she could seek him out; but she hadn’t yet, and that made Bellamy think that maybe she was avoiding him, too.

Bellamy was just pulling his shirt over his head when he heard his name.

“Bellamy?”

His entire body stiffened and Bellamy froze. Only slightly recovering from his surprise, he turned around slowly to face Clarke, pulling the bottom of his shirt down to cover the strip of skin over the waistline of his pants. Clarke was standing in the doorway, looking shrunken in on herself and staring at him meekly. Her eyes were on his stomach, but she lifted them up to his face when he was facing her Bellamy wondered how long she had been standing there, feeling his cheeks heat up and hoping she couldn’t tell, or that she would write it off as a result of the steam from the shower.

“Clarke? How did you get in here?” Bellamy attempted to compose himself. He doubted he was doing a even a half-decent job.

“I knocked but you didn’t answer,” she said, then added, “You should really lock your door.”

Bellamy shrugged and walked past her out into the main room of his quarters. His room was a mess, loose papers everywhere, and books he’d found here and there scattered in various places on the shelves and floor – a stark contrast to the spotlessness he had witnessed in Clarke’s own room three days prior. His thoughts had been all over the place lately and, since he hadn’t been spending too much of his free time with Clarke, he mostly resorted to keeping busy in his personal space. Bellamy cleared a place for Clarke to sit on a chair but she remained standing, her arms crossed over her chest. Bellamy felt his stomach drop.

“Clarke, why are you here?” he asked, dreading her answer.

“We need to talk.”

Dammit.

Bellamy nodded, then said, “Yeah.” His mouth was dry.

Clarke stepped toward him so she was right in front of him, and Bellamy was forced to look at her. Her brows were furrowed and she looked up at him, her blue eyes steely. “You know, when I woke up and you were gone, I thought that you had changed your mind about me and left,” she started. “I was so _happy_ when I saw your note. Yet now I’m starting to think my initial reaction was right.” Her voice cracked. “Why are you avoiding me, Bellamy?”

He didn’t know what to say to that, but before he could respond Clarke had her arms around his neck and she paused only for a brief second, lips hovering his, before pushing herself onto her tiptoes to press a firm kiss to his mouth. Bellamy instinctively tensed up, shocked, and he didn’t kiss her back. Clarke held herself there, still kissing him, for a moment longer, until she finally pulled herself away to stare up at him again.

Her eyes were filled with hurt, and Bellamy wished that he could erase the pain from her eyes. “You told me that we would ‘continue this another time’,” Clarke told him in a cold impression of his voice. “But you didn’t mean that either, did you?”

She searched his eyes once, and then pulled away, starting to turn towards the door.

Bellamy didn’t give her a chance to move very far. Snapping out of it, he reached for her wrist, spinning her around and pressing her against the wall, his lips searching for hers. Clarke gasped but she didn’t try to push him away; instead, she scrunched up the back of his t-shirt with her hands, letting her body relax against his. She started to move her lips against his as she melted into the kiss. Warmth spread through Bellamy’s chest. This, this felt right – familiar. This was what Bellamy had been missing these past three days: having Clarke near, holding her. He missed being around her so much his heart physically ached for it. It was only now that he realized how stupid he had been for assuming the worst, and stopped kissing her to just pull away a few centimetres.

“I thought you would regret what happened,” he told her softly. “It’s why I was avoiding you. I was scared you hated me.”

Clarke pushed him away a bit more so he could see her face better. She was frowning at him. “Why would you think that?” She shook her head and didn’t wait for his answer. “You idiot.”

She pulled him back, this time with her hands on his neck, kissing him more fervently. Bellamy responded just as eagerly, sliding his hands up her back so that they were between her shoulder blades. She responded by pushing forward forcefully, making him start taking steps backward. It was then that Bellamy realized the energy between them had changed. The tempo of their kissing picked up, and Clarke’s mouth searched for his desperately. She continued to edge him further and further backwards until he felt the back of his legs hit wood, and they stumbled together onto the bed, sitting up together on the mattress.

The kissing was frantic, urgent. It felt like if they stopped, the world would become unbalanced. All of the pent up emotions, the uncertainty Bellamy had been harboring in his heart for the past three days, was finally released. His doubts evaporated, but the passion remained. Bellamy felt like he was fighting against a current when he finally dragged his himself away from her lips and popped a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Clarke started to protest but Bellamy dropped more pecks along her cheek, teasing her, and she went silent. His lips drew a trail down to her jaw and continued onto her neck. Bellamy heard Clarke’s sharp intake of breath as his lips lingered on her skin, before proceeding to press lazy kisses all the way down to where her neck met her shoulder. When he reached her shirt, he nudged the shoulder of her t-shirt away with his nose, tickling her skin slightly, and started to move her bra strap when he felt Clarke unmistakably tense up.

Bellamy stopped what he was doing and pulled away immediately. He turned to look at Clarke, whose mouth was pressed into a tight line, her shoulders hunched in on herself; she wasn’t looking directly at him.

Bellamy softened. “We don’t have to do anything,” he promised gently.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Clarke quickly told him, her eyes flickering up to his and then darting away. She looked uncharacteristically shy. “It’s just that …” she hesitated. “You’ve been with more people than I have. I – I don’t know if I’m … what you expect.”

She looked down at her hands, now in her lap, and Bellamy reached out to grab one, moving his thumb against the back of it in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He opened his mouth to speak but found that he didn’t know the proper words to say. Maybe, the proper words to reassure her didn’t exist – maybe he would have to do so in other ways.

“It’s because I love you,” he spat out without thinking, his heart pounding against his chest as Clarke’s head darted up to look at him, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly parted in awe.

“What?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Bellamy gulped. “You asked me, before, why I stayed, and I told you it was because I cared about you,” he started, slowly, half disbelieving what he was finally saying. “But I didn’t tell you the full truth. Because I don’t just care about you, Clarke. I love you.”

Clarke was speechless, but it was okay. Because now, staring into her glimmering eyes, all the right words came to him. “All those other girls that I’ve been with … I didn’t love them, or even care about them. I didn’t even know most of their names.” He felt slightly guilty admitting this, but it was the truth. “You - everything about this – it’s _different_ , Clarke. Meaningful. This, this is new to me, too. I’ve never been with someone who meant anything to me before. I want it to be different with you.”

He paused to take a breath before continuing. “I want to hold you at night, and kiss you, and love you – and do everything that comes with that – but only when you are ready, even if that means that you never are. If I can just love you for the rest of my life, then that’s already more than I could ever deserve.”

Clarke stared at him, her eyes filled with liquid, and she seemed to have lost the power of speech. It was hard to decipher whether the look in her eyes was fear or awe, love or discomfort. The question of whether his feelings for her were mutual or whether he had severely misjudged rallied back and forth in his head like a ping pong match. Nothing in her eyes revealed if Clarke was about to throw her arms around him or bolt out of the room.

In the end, she did neither.

After what felt like hours of Clarke just staring at him, she finally leaned forward slowly and touched her lips gingerly to his own, one hand resting softly on his cheek, light as a feather. This kiss was different than their other ones – it was slower, gentler. It wasn’t as desperate, but somehow managed to feel just as passionate. Bellamy responded equally as slowly, taking his time with her. For once, he didn’t feel like he needed to rush. The wars were finally over, all the conflict and bloodshed on all ends momentarily forgotten. In this moment, Bellamy and Clarke existed in the world by themselves, and the only thing that mattered was the two of them. Lips still locked, they fell sideways onto the mattress together, Bellamy’s hand cupping her cheek.

And what Clarke whispered into his ear when they finally parted, Bellamy thought were the sweetest words ever spoken:

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yayyyy I finished this fic. I really wasn't intending for it to be such a production.
> 
> I would love love love if you could let me know what you thought in the comments and, if you liked it, left kudos.
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND STICKING WITH ME THROUGH THE ANGSTY TIMES - YOU'RE THE BEST


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